Company
by peppaminty
Summary: "Mmm, I think that's what we did."


-A/N- This was written for bloody_winged on LJ as a gift for the fma_santa comm. It mostly adheres to the manga and Brotherhood but excludes the obviously Ed/Winry bits.

* * *

><p>Lieutenant Colonel Elric sighed and pulled his ponytail a little tighter. It was December 31st, 1917, almost three years after the Promised Day, and he was on his way back to his apartment.<p>

Al was back in Resembool with Winry. Ed had wanted to stay with them, but years of traveling wouldn't let him stay still, and they had recently become engaged, making him feel like a third wheel. He'd thought about getting a job, maybe moving somewhere else... but he realized he wouldn't know what to do or where to begin. His entire life he'd had something to work for or someone to tell him what to do, but since Al had gotten his body back, there was nothing for him to do anymore.

So he'd reenlisted.

For all he'd complained about getting the hell out of the goddamned military when he was younger, he found himself almost missing it at some times. They'd gladly taken him back, even without his alchemy, and offered him a promotion and his own staff. It wasn't terribly exciting; mostly paperwork, and he could see why Mustang had complained about it so much, but it kept him busy enough. He didn't have any problems with Grumman being Fuhrer, even if he was a little bit insane. After the last one, he didn't think anyone could really object to having a slightly strange ruler as compared to an inhuman one who was hell bent on killing all of his citizens.

Ed stopped in front of his building and eyed the stairs leading up to his apartment on the second floor. It was cold and his leg hurt, and stairs were no fun. He grumbled the whole way up, and rubbed at his knee a bit while he searched for his keys.

As soon as he got the door open he could hear the shrill ringing of the telephone, and he scrambled to catch it before the person on the other end hung up, kicking the door closed and dropping his keys and the file he was holding on the counter.

"Hello?" he asked, a little bit out of breath.

"_Brother! Happy New Years! Did you just get home?"_

"You too, Al," Ed smiled. "And yeah, I did."

"_How have you been?"_

"I'm okay. Not much has changed since you called last week."

"_Well, I wanted to check anyway. Are you sure you don't want to come visit us for the weekend?"_

He could, by train the trip from East City to Resembool was only a couple hours, and it was very tempting. "I wish I could, Al," he groaned. "but they won't cut me any slack if I'm behind on my work."

"_I still can't believe they'd give you so much work over the holidays. I really wish I could see you more often."_ There was a pause. _"And Winry wants to know whether your taking care of your leg."_

Ed scowled. "You can tell her I am. Geez, how old does she think I am?"

"_Ed, you know she worries about you."_

"You'd think that now that it's just the leg, she'd worry less, but it seems like she's been worrying more. I say she doesn't have enough to worry about."

Ed thought he heard Al sigh. And then he was very sure he heard someone knocking on the door. That was puzzling; who did he even know who would bother him on New Year's eve?

"I've gotta go, Al. Someone's at the door. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"_Okay. You'd better not forget to call back, brother!"_

"I won't," he promised, putting the phone back on the receiver.

For a moment he entertained the idea that Winry was waiting outside with a wrench to get him for his last remark, but that frightened him a bit so he just went to check.

He cautiously opened the door, still almost expecting an irate Winry, but instead found none other than Roy Mustang. He opened the door the rest of the way, frowning.

"What do you want?"

"I was alone, I figured you were alone, and I wanted to know if you'd like to spend New Year's together?" Roy smiled in a way that made Ed want to melt and say Yes, come in, I would love to spend all night together with y- _how did he do that_.

Instead he deepened his frown and shifted his weight to his other leg. "How do you even know where I live?"

"I'm your commanding officer. Of course I know where you live."

Ed huffed. "Why would I want to spend the holiday with you?"

"Ah, but why wouldn't you?" There was a long pause in which he was met with nothing but Ed's glare, so he tried again. "I brought alcohol?" he lifted a bottle of scotch, which caught the light of a streetlight outside and shone golden. He considered this momentarily, and a breeze reminded him the door was still open and goddammit it was _cold_, so he stepped aside and mumbled, "Come in."

Roy did so and closed the door behind him, and it was at this point Ed realized he still hadn't turned on any of the lights. "Ah, gimme a second," he mumbled, stumbling around blindly and hissing when his hip made contact with the counter.

"Sitting in the dark?" Ed could almost hear the smirk accompanying the question.

"I just got home, dickface." He finally located the lightswitch and flipped it on, and the both of them blinked in the sudden brightness.

"You go sit down or something," Ed mumbled, gesturing towards the small living area. "I'll find some glasses."

Roy wandered towards the couch and carefully sat down on it, moving a few papers out of the way. He pushed a few more papers around on the coffee table until there was room enough to set the scotch down and looked around.

"Not very much space, is there?" he remarked.

"I don't really need much space," Ed replied, rummaging through the cabinets. "I mean, it's just me, and I don't have a lot of stuff." He found the glasses he was looking for and settled himself on the couch, handing Roy a glass. Roy opened the bottle and poured them both an appropriate amount of scotch.

"So," Ed declared.

"To the new year," Roy finished.

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><p>Half an hour later found them sitting on the floor because they didn't trust themselves not to fall over sitting on the couch, a fire crackling happily in the fireplace.<p>

"But see, if you did that, the entire array would become unstable," Ed scribbled out an example of what he was talking about on the back of a sheet of notes. Even unable to perform alchemy, he was still very knowledgeable on the subject, and the two of them quickly found themselves sharing theories.

"Not completely unstable, though," Roy reasoned, "Look here." He stole the pen away from Ed and sketched out his own version. "If you add in a few extra symbols here..."

Ed tried to steal the pen back, but Roy evaded the attempt and continued working. Ed opened his mouth to complain, but his attention was grabbed by the glitter of firelight on Roy's eyes. He'd always been a bit fascinated with them; they were just so _dark_. Roy looked his drawing over carefully and then set the pen down. "What do you think?" he asked, his eyes meeting Ed's.

Ed pounced.

* * *

><p>The first thing Ed noticed upon waking was that it felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his head. The second was that it was too goddamn bright.<p>

Then he heard a gentle snore and managed to crack an eye open, finding a large expanse of pale skin directly in front of his face. He closed his eyes again, the pain in his head making him wish he could just curl up and die.

He took a few deep breaths before pushing himself up into a sitting position, fully prepared to go get a glass of water and a few aspirins, but from his new vantage point he could see that the large expanse of pale skin was actually a back. This back led up to a set of broad shoulders and then a neck and then a head. A head with a mess of short black hair.

His eyes followed this path in reverse until they met with the resistance of the sheets, which blocked his view of anything beyond the waist attached to the back. He closed his eyes until his head stopped spinning quite so violently, then sighed.

And then it hit him; the back and neck and shoulders and head all belonged to _Roy Mustang_, _Roy Mustang_ was _naked_ and _in his bed_ and he was naked _too_ and _oh god_ they had _sex last night_.

"Fuck," he announced.

"Mmm," Roy rumbled, rolling over. "I think that's what we did." He rubbed at his eyes and then opened them, only to immediately snap them shut again upon contact with the sunlight. "Happy 1918?"


End file.
